


Madame Christmas’ Palace of Pleasures: Psychiatric Counseling Division

by jinlinli, silentwalrus



Series: TERRIBLE ideas [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Bad Nights at the Loco Coco Cabana, Brad’s Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, Comedy, Formalwear, M/M, POV Outsider, Psychosexual Baggage, Terror Boners, amestrisan best therapeutical practices, modern-ish AU, past breakup, when your ex-boyfriend’s boyfriend is also a wmd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:27:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23571583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinlinli/pseuds/jinlinli, https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentwalrus/pseuds/silentwalrus
Summary: It’s not the worst break-up. But between the realization that him only ever calling his boyfriend Elric and his boyfriend only ever calling him Brad might say something about the nature of their relationship, and the realization that Elric treated him with the same level of baffled amused affection as he did his brother’s cat, even, especially, in, and around the times they were having sex — anyway, there was a reason why it was better for both of them to break up.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang, Past Edward Elric/Original Male Character
Series: TERRIBLE ideas [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696942
Comments: 75
Kudos: 535





	Madame Christmas’ Palace of Pleasures: Psychiatric Counseling Division

**Author's Note:**

> AHA! ‘Tis I who gets to thank chad for being my co-pilot this time. A week ago I woke up in a cold sweat ranting and raving about BRAD GIFFORDS, and we did not stop until he was exorcised from our collective bodies.

Brad has the best taste in men. This is fact and has been acknowledged by more than just Brad, as he is the current ranking champion of his gym’s Bro Score Pool. This also serves to indicate that often, these excellent men want Brad right back. Unfortunately, these high-caliber men - with the exception of Brad - tend to have terrible taste themselves. 

It’s not the worst break-up. But between the realization that him only ever calling his boyfriend Elric and his boyfriend only ever calling him Brad might say something about the nature of their relationship, and the realization that Elric treated him with the same level of baffled amused affection as he did his brother’s cat, even, especially, in, and around the times they were having sex - anyway, there was a reason why it was better for both of them to break up. 

But there are just some exes that come in and rearrange your entire life because they thought they didn’t really like the wallpaper, but actually it was the support beams of the whole fucking house. And Elric got through knocking down a couple before he realized he wouldn’t get any further unless he started ripping up the foundations, and even he’s not reckless enough to give that a try. So he patched up the holes in the walls and left mid-reno, and —

Anyway. Brad has a lot of psychosexual baggage now. 

Said psychosexual baggage does not change the fact that he’s deeply, viscerally attracted to tanned stout blonds with _biceps_ , though, and he has needs, okay? If anything, the psychosexual baggage makes his libido worse.

So Brad does what every red-blooded Amestrisan man with emotional trauma does, and books a hooker. 

Her name is Edelweiss, which _has_ to be an alias, and speaks to just how much she knows what her main marketable appeal is. Edelweiss is 5’3”, which is shorter than the men Brad goes for, but somehow evokes the same sense of scale. She isn’t as universally golden either, but that doesn’t break the illusion so much as create all sorts of novel fantasies for Brad to jerk off to in the future when he’s feeling especially tipsy and weepy. _Tanlines_. 

Edelweiss also doesn’t exactly have the same kind of biceps, but honestly, few do, and in any case she could still ever so tenderly cradle Brad’s head in both hands and pop his skull open like a grapefruit if she really squeezed. So it’s fine. It’s good. It’s great, actually. 

So anyway, Brad gets a little too into it. 

It doesn’t help that Edelweiss gives him this condescending indulgent look when he temporarily loses his mind somewhere after getting a hold of her tits and realizing he can feel her _pectoral muscles_ , and he just outright asks her if he can call her Ed. Nearly blows his load right there. It’s embarrassing, revealing, and just kinky enough for Brad to sink into fond memories of Elric half-heartedly edging him while he reads a book on fourth-dimensional transmutation theory.

Anyway. He finishes the encounter, throws the condom in the bin, and tips extremely well because he’s a goddamn gentleman—and because honestly, he really does desperately need Edelweiss to let him come back for another go. 

Doesn’t think much of it beyond occasionally wincing at his bank account, as Brad goes back to his everyday life of processing requisition applications and listening to General Halcrow bitch about what feels like every other high-ranking officer in Central Command. It’s peaceful. So blissfully boring that Brad’s mind stops processing thoughts altogether.

So he doesn’t recognize any danger whatsoever when dear sweet Warrant Officer Lina Baker sidles up to him and initiates conversation. She was the one who fed piña coladas and peach-lychee bellinis into Brad until he cracked and soppily told her about the break-up during last month’s Signal Corps social, which is information that she then quickly disseminated through the rest of the secretary pool in a blatant violation of the bro code. Brad felt inordinately hurt about that until Chet and Trant from the gym took him orienteering and told him not to let bitches get to him and also that everyone kinda already knew. Brad kind of had to agree. Dating Elric is not something one can do in any kind of secret. 

This time, Lina doesn’t even give him any room to say anything, which initially Brad takes as a good sign. Lina just rattles on about General Mustang as Brad half-heartedly listens. Really, Brad has always sort of liked General Mustang. Partially because General Halcrow has said his name enough times that mere-exposure effect kicks in, and Brad is psychologically compelled to like him. Plus, ever since the man was promoted to General, his title just sounds like something out of a trashy military kink porn starring General Mustang and Private Krystal Spankin.

“-ting the Fullmetal Alchemist?”

“Hngah?” Brad says because he’s on Day Forty-Three of his dry spell, ever since he realized he really has to ration out his Edelweiss appointments if he wants to actually pay rent to live in a home and eat and drink real human food and beverages. 

He’s not actually sure if the military checks if he’s using his stipend responsibly, but he doesn’t exactly want to find out if they’ll decide they don’t want to keep funding Madame Christmas’s Palace of Pleasures. He feels this would be fairly hypocritical of them given he first heard of the place in a chortling aside from General Halcrow, but Accounting has no sense of humor or sex drive, and possibly no understanding of any other human vices beyond bloodlust and monetary greed. 

Lina is looking at him like she’s mildly concerned that he’s gotten a head injury, but also that would be excellent news because she would have more things to relay to Tynnyfer and Sasha over Girls Night Wednesday 10% Off Sangrias. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“Sorry,” Brad says. “Long night.”

“Yeah, I can tell. You look _terrible_.” Lina inspects her work-appropriate acrylic manicure, and then apparently remembers that the last time they talked, Brad gave her enough gossip fodder for twelve brunches with five separate coworker circles. “You can tell me if you’re having a hard time.”

“I’m good,” Brad says.

“Are you sure?” Lina says solicitously, likely regretting that it’s professionally unacceptable to ply a colleague with alcoholic beverages at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. “I mean, it must be pretty hard news to take in.”

“I guess,” is the answer Brad goes with rather than admit that he has no idea what the hard news is even supposed to be.

“I mean, if _I_ found out that my ex-boyfriend,” here Lina does a bizarre tittering-blushing-squirming _thing_ that reminds Brad that part of the reason why she zeroed in on him post-breakup was because of repressed jealous rage over Elric’s decidedly non-fluid homosexuality, “was dating someone else —”

“ _What_ ,” Brad says.

“— and _General Mustang_ at that. I don’t know what I’d do with myself.”

“He’s,” and here words fail Brad, as the entire spectrum of human emotion seems to be failing him also. “Dating? General? Mustang?”

“Weren’t you listening? Maisie says Raelle told her that she heard him telling Jason that they got together after the General helped him walk into a door.” Lina frowns. “He probably meant through a door. Apparently he was laughing a lot when he said it, though, so maybe it’s some kind of code?” Here she sighs. “Or maybe they have in-jokes already. They haven’t even been together a week!” 

“Are you sure they didn’t just mishear it?” Brad says, a little too desperately, because he remembers _very clearly_ Elric laughing, saying _c’mon, slap me, hard as you can, if it leaves a mark we’ll just say I walked into a door —_

Thankfully, Lina is too offended to smell the blood in the water. “Do you really think Maisie would _lie_ to me?”

“No, no!” Brad says because Lina has enough blackmail material on him to ruin his life if she really wanted to. “But you know, maybe Raelle was exaggerating. Weren’t you saying the other day that she made up that thing about Colonel Hawkeye having a secret back tattoo to get one over on you when you were—”

“I don’t remember saying that,” Lina says with a sniff and a flick of her hair. “Raelle’s a dear friend of mine.”

Brad’s pretty sure he remembers Lina describing in detail how much she wanted to rip Raelle’s pretty honey-blonde highlights right out of her head after the bleach job Lina’d gotten — post-Elric-had-a-blonde-ex-girlfriend rumor — came out a brassy orange. But Brad also doesn’t really understand female friendships. Chet and Trant don’t do this sort of thing. 

“Anyway,” Lina says. “Are you going to the officer’s ball?”

Brad has a brain-death moment where he is fully convinced that he should bring Edelweiss with him as his plus-one. “I,” he says, but luckily Lina apparently didn’t care about his answer so much as she wanted to talk about her own dress and her own plans and her own boyfriend, who is 20% less blond, 20% less tanned, and 20% less muscular than Elric, but kinda sorta has his jawline if you’re drunk and squinting, which Brad was when he met him at the Signal Corps Saturday Brunch Mixer.

Thankfully, Brad’s water bill arriving in the mail the next morning works wonders for helping him regain his sanity. It makes it extremely clear that if he wants to keep showering and flushing his toilet, he’s got about one Edelweiss timeslot left for the next three months. And he’s not about to waste that on playing footsie under the dinner table while Second Lieutenant Walter Palmero and his equally stiff wife Louisa pretend that they don’t notice.

So Brad shows up stag in a sport coat that Chet said totally worked for black-tie. Trant assured him it made him look good but like in a no-homo-uhh-not-like-that’s-a-bad-thing-I-accept-you-no-matter-what-bro sorta way. He feels pretty great about it until he walks in and sees all the waiters in little bowties carrying around platters of finicky appetizers on toothpicks. Brad also sees Colonel Hawkeye in a floor-length evening gown with a thigh-high slit that makes it very clear she’s packing heat. She looks so beautiful you don’t want to look away, but also so lethal, you only feel legally allowed to take glances in two-second increments or face expedited justice from the state, which in this case would be personally delivered via bullet by Colonel Hawkeye. 

So that’s a great start to the night. Brad books it to the open bar to down a champagne spritzer because it’s barely five minutes in and he’s already gotten a stiffy. 

He peruses the rest of the gathered guests from the shelter of the bar as he nervously chews through the bartender’s supply of olives. There’s General Halcrow looking sour, his wife who looks less sour, and his two teenage children who seem to be doing their level best to make him regret bringing them along. Lina’s by the swan ice sculpture glaring daggers at a woman who’s wearing the exact same dress as her. Brad assumes that would be Raelle. 

Then he does a double-take at the man standing next to her, only to remember that Lina’s boyfriend is a person that exists. Brad also realizes that he’s been downing champagne on an empty stomach this whole time, and it’s maybe starting to get to him because honestly, he should know better than to think Elric would show up to one of these shindigs. 

Brad forces himself to move away from the bar and find the waiter with crab cakes. There’s gotta be one of them around here.

Lina’s boyfriend is frowning with consternation and confusion, fiddling with his tux as he glances between his girlfriend and someone on the other side of the room. Brad’s close enough to see that he doesn’t even condition his ends. There are also no crab cakes, but Brad does find cucumber sandwiches and this weird paté thing made of sheep liver and nutmeg that’s supposedly a delicacy in Eastern Amestris. He only even recognizes it because Elric force-fed it to him once.

Maybe Brad should’ve just ate the bill and brought Edelweiss anyway. He’s so desperately horny, he’s projecting onto the hors d'oeuvres. He grabs a handful of both from the silently judgmental waiter and starts chewing through them to get a head-start on soaking up the booze in his stomach. 

Lina’s boyfriend looks like he’s trying to start an argument with her. Lina seems to be too preoccupied with how much smaller Raelle’s waist and how much bigger Raelle’s boobs look in her version of the dress. Brad brushes some crumbs off of his button-up as he watches Lina’s boyfriend make all sorts of angry gestures at - 

Elric is here. 

For a second that’s the only thing Brad’s brain is capable of knowing, just a big neon flashing marquee sign saying _ELRIC IS HERE_ with accompanying sirens and cannon blasts. Elric is here, and he’s in a _suit,_ even if he’s missing a tie and his shirt collar is unbuttoned and Brad’s pretty sure those are motorcycle boots under those slacks. His hair is only in a braid at least, which does make him look painfully himself but also spares Brad the dick-destroying vision of Elric with his hair up. 

Then it registers that there’s a gloved hand on his shoulder. The glove is white. On the glove is an array. The array is blood red, famous across all of Amestris, and the arm it’s attached to belongs to General Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist, Hero of Ishval and walking human bomb. Who is smiling down at Elric like he’s going to eat him pan-seared over a bed of watercress and miso-glazed prawns - or possibly just raw. 

Elric is smiling back like it’s General Mustang who’s gonna be the prawn. Brad turns right around and heads for the bar. 

He stumbles off to the bathroom thirty minutes later, because he really does have to do something besides stare fixedly into the bottle racks and most importantly away from anywhere Elric might be behind him, and also because these champagne spritzers are really starting to take a toll. He feels he is justified in indulging in the alcohol, because his ex is here and Cosmo definitely defined that as an acceptable reason to drink. The fact that his ex’s new boyfriend is also here and happens to be a human fucking artillery strike is not a situation Cosmo felt able to address, which Brad is willing to forgive given he has no fucking clue how to address it either. Should he go find them? Say hi? Clap Elric on the shoulder to show no hard feelings and incidentally get one last grope of the biceps? Look General Mustang in the eyes and feel his soul wither and blow away in the wind along with his masculinity? 

No, he should definitely just stick to the bar. Or maybe hide in the gents’ until the janitors stumble across him and kick him out. 

The restroom is one of those fancy individual-stall dealies with the wooden doors. It’s a really nice gig. There’s a little sitting area with couches and coffee tables and mints before you get to the actual bathroom. You dry your hands on these cloth towel things that you put in a wicker basket after. Also the door knobs and the latch bolts are these delicate exquisite masterpieces of metalwork that’re so elaborate they _don’t actually lock properly_. 

Brad knows this. He _should_ know this. He’s been to this venue once before for his cousin’s wedding reception, and he had to do a complicated maneuver where he braced his leg up to hold the door shut while he took a shit. He makes for the big stall because that’s the one where you can get the best leverage, and as much as Brad doesn’t want to be _that_ douche, he also really doesn’t want anyone to walk in on him. 

He’ll just have to hustle. If Colonel Hawkeye ever finds out that he made the wheelchair-bound Lieutenant Colonel Havoc wait _two extra minutes_ for Brad to get his champagne pisses out - well, he might as well’ve looked his fill at how muscular her calves were in that dress. He’d be just as dead, but at least he’d be happy. So Brad pushes into the stall with one hand, the other already busy with working his belt buckle open, looks up and -

Blond. Blond braid. It’s - Elric. Elric is on the floor. Kneeling. He is on the floor and he is kneeling because General Mustang is standing in front of him, close, so close, and he oh _god_ he’s got his dick out. He has his dick out, and he’s smiling, and he’s got a hand in Elric’s hair and a hand on Elric’s face and oh — god, Elric is peeling the glove off, _with his teeth_ , which is the equivalent of him stripping an AK-47 with his mouth only _worse,_ and oh god oh god Brad’s _had_ that fantasy and _he just walked in on them —_

General Mustang looks up. So does Elric. _“Brad?”_ he says, muffled. 

_“Brad?”_ General Mustang repeats, not muffled at all. 

_“Hhhh?”_ Brad manages, actively asphyxiating. 

“Second Lieutenant Brad Giffords,” General Mustang says, in a tone that’s literally indescribable. He hasn’t let go of Elric’s hair. If anything, he digs his fingers in a little harder, which draws a garbled noise from Elric’s throat. Brad feels his dick try to crawl back up into his body in psychosexual terror.

“Sss. Sir?” 

General Mustang stares him down, flicking a glance pointedly down at Brad’s, yup, his tented pants where he’s still got his hand on his belt like he’s actually insane enough to _join_ them. Brad hastily snatches it away.

There’s an almost pull in General Mustang’s cheek, and he brings his gaze back up to lacerating Brad through direct eye contact. Brad will quite literally piss his pants if he tries to move while under this kind of duress, but he also has the sudden, horrifically vivid realization that he knows exactly what General Mustang would sound like if he said, _Good boy_.

Elric doesn’t even look at Brad for longer than the couple seconds it requires for him to verify he’s still standing there. Which does terrible confusing things to Brad’s dick because it’s almost exactly like they’re in their old relationship again. “Oh my fucking god, Roy,” Elric says, spitting the glove out. “Unless you’re prepared to have a threesome here you better let him go.”

General Mustang continues to use eye contact like a machine gun mount. “You heard the man,” he says, then glances down as he moves his hand to cup Elric’s cheek. Brad, survival instincts allowed to rev to life again, seizes the moment to flee.

He almost makes it all the way out the restroom door before he remembers that he didn’t just run in there for no reason. He still really, really, _really_ has to take a piss. For an excruciatingly long span of time, Brad hangs in the doorway of the bathroom, staring down the barrel of his options: 

A) He can risk a general’s wife catching him peeing into a potted fern. 

B) He can just piss his pants right here and shuffle home

C) He can go back into the restroom. 

There are armed hostage negotiations more difficult to call than this.

General Mustang already knows his face. He apparently knows his _name._ There is no salvaging this. Brad may as well spare the fern. 

He bites down on another whimper and turns back around, staggering back into the bathroom like a man headed for the noose. He picks the stall the furthest away, but it’s - it’s not like there’s - he can still _hear_ things. According to Second Lieutenant Palmero, the bathrooms were designed to have the same acoustics as an opera house, and right now Brad sure as fuck believes it. 

There’s the very unmistakable sound of a zipper being pulled, and Elric letting out a sigh. It’s muffled, like his mouth is being covered by _something_ , and there are - other sounds —

“Are you seriously gonna make him listen to us fuck?” he hears Elric say. 

“He’s not listening,” General Mustang says, in an easy tone Brad understands to be simultaneously both taunt and inviolable order. He tries desperately to will his ear canals shut and when his body informs him that’s not physically possible he tells it to shut the fuck up and hop to if it knows what’s good for it. 

“Hard to get it up when you can hear a guy pissing, eh?”

“You seem to manage just fine.”

Is Brad part of the _flavor_ of the scene? He tries to pee faster.

General Mustang snorts, presumably at the change in cadence of falling water because Elric hasn’t responded in any way that Brad can hear. Which doesn’t mean he hasn’t responded at all, because he’s - and they’re — 

Brad hastily shakes off his dick and shoves it back into his boxers, shimmies his pants back up and flees for his fucking life. 

He bursts back into the ballroom probably looking like whatever he tried to flush in the gents’ tried to flush him instead. He can’t leave until General Halcrow sees him and acknowledges he’s done his entirely voluntary duty of showing up at this thing, but if he stays here in this room he’s going to have a nervous breakdown into one of the floral centerpieces. He - he can just go straight to the afterparty. Early. Yes. Tactics. He’s good at those. Sweating with relief, he makes his way for the door. 

An hour later, he’ll learn that General Halcrow left early due to his kids having destroyed the ice sculpture but also that it doesn’t matter because the bartender at the afterparty venue is _very_ friendly and makes the most _amazing_ drinks. This place is suffering from a bad case of tiki theme with excess palm leaves, but it’s dark and boozy and most importantly doesn’t have any ex-boyfriends or ex-boyfriend’s boyfriends in it. He’s safe here. 

The CoCo Loco Cabana’s piña coladas still give him some trauma sweats because that’s how Lina got him in the first place, so he orders a very safe Tropical Sunset Tiki Party Bowl TM. It’s shaped like a volcano with flashing LED ice cube lights and dry ice ‘smoke’ billowing out the top. The little umbrella toothpicks sticking into the pineapple chunks are working wonders for lifting his mood.

“Hello, Brad,” says a voice that Brad will probably now hear in every nightmare, even the ones about talking carrots and flesh-eating sheep. 

Usually Elric was the starring player in the latter. Maybe this is also a dream right now? Brad pinches himself on the thigh, hard, and learns that this is in fact reality and General Mustang is in fact standing behind him and will presumably kill him if he doesn’t provide some kind of appropriate return greeting, right the fuck now. 

“General Mustang sir,” he manages, swiveling himself around on the barstool in a move propelled by sheer terror. 

General Mustang is smiling at him, carrying absolutely no sign that he’d been getting blown in a public restroom less than an hour previous. “Fancy running into you here. You’re an early comer, I see.” He claps Brad’s shoulder. “I’d shake your hand, only you didn’t wash them.” 

“Yes sir,” Brad wheezes, understanding that it’s the only conversational avenue available to him. There’s no sign of Elric. General Mustang is still smiling at him. His hand is still on Brad’s shoulder. He’s not squeezing at all, he’s not even pushing or anything, but then he doesn’t need to when all Brad can see is that array right out of the corner of his eye. 

Brad tries not to think about whether this was the glove Elric had his mouth on. He does not succeed. 

“How are you doing, Brad?” General Mustang says. His tone is warm and his eyes say _I have killed thousands._ Brad tries looking to the grass-skirt-clad bartender for aid, but the bartender is busy adjusting his coconut bra in the mirror on the far back wall. There will be no reinforcements from that quarter. 

“Yes sir,” Brad says before remembering that’s not the answer he’s supposed to give. “I mean. I’m doing. Fine.”

General Mustang nods with an agreeable smile, then he leans in a little further so he’s _looming_ over Brad. He gets the feeling that General Mustang would like him to be as far from ‘fine’ as possible. Brad’s definitely halfway there already. The ice cube lights are melting and sinking to the bottom of the party bowl. “Now, there’s no need to overstate the matter,” General Mustang says kindly. “It’s better to be honest about the size and shape of things when we come down to it.” 

Oh god, is General Mustang talking - about - _dick size?_ Brad gropes behind him for his twisty straw and downs a gulp of booze. Even that small glimpse in the bathroom made it clear that his dick is bigger than General Mustang’s. Is that considered treason against the state? Is he duty-bound to chop off his own dick for being better endowed than a superior officer? How would General Mustang even _know_ how big Brad’s dick is? Elric never even bothered to remember he had a tattoo on his tailbone that says FREE PARKING in three different languages, let alone the dimensions of Brad’s penis.

“I. Don’t think size really matters? That much?” Brad tries. He resists the urge to salute, but he hopes his tone is enough to show his loyalty to his country is steadfast and unimpeachable enough not to warrant any dick shortening.

“How charitable of you to say so,” General Mustang replies dryly. 

Brad’s still too caught up in the overwhelming revelation that Elric apparently retained enough memory of their sex life to even comment about it. He was almost positive Elric developed a Pavlovian total brain shutdown response to skin-to-skin contact with Brad. So it takes an excruciatingly long time for him to realize that he not only admitted to comparing relative dick length with a _war alchemist_ , he also acknowledged that said alchemist was _lacking_ in that department.

Aw hell, he hasn’t even told Edelweiss he loves her. If Brad disappears now, she won’t have any idea what happened to him. Not that she would _care_ , or even notice he was gone. But still, there are some things that should never be left unsaid. “Permission to make one last phone call before my execution, sir?”

General Mustang laughs. “There’s no need to be so dramatic, Lieutenant. We’re all friends here.” 

“Friends,” Brad repeats weakly. He’s heard hair-raising stories of General Mustang laughing and joking with General Raven not two weeks before setting him up to be chopped into itty-bitty pieces by General Armstrong’s sword. He’s pretty sure ‘friends’ is just about the worst place to be with General Mustang.

General Mustang slides onto the stool next to Brad’s and leans casually against the bar top. The dark wood makes the stark white and red of his gloves that much more conspicuous. “What kind of commanding officer would I be if I didn’t have a drink from time to time with my men?”

“Oh,” Brad says, and looks at his Tropical Sunset Tiki Party Bowl TM in all of its flashing volcanic glory. “Uh.” 

Is this supposed to be a test? Dry ice, middle-shelf rum, and Aerugan pineapples aren’t exactly cheap, so Brad’s a little reluctant to part with it. But if it’s that or death by castration - well… Brad bids a silent farewell to the hula girl at the base of the volcano and silently pushes his drink closer to General Mustang. Miss Aloha’s hips bob cheerfully as the party bowl slides across the bar top. A stab of pain pulses in Brad’s stomach as he watches her go.

General Mustang eyes the offering with a raised eyebrow for a moment before saying, “Thanks, but I know where your mouth has been.” He sends a look over Brad’s shoulder and does an elegant sort of wave-flick with his hand, the deadly white of his glove flashing in the dim light. 

The previously AWOL bartender materializes with a tumbler of dark amber liquid topped with a half-twist of an orange peel. Brad didn’t even _realize_ they served Negronis here.

“A toast then,” General Mustang says, lifting his glass. God, is he _trying_ to flash his Death By Fire array at Brad? Are those things embroidered in fucking neon? 

Is Brad supposed to lift up his Tropical Sunset Tiki Party Bowl TM? _Can_ he? The hula girl wobbles warningly at him when he gingerly pushes the drink towards General Mustang’s glass in an approximation of a clink. This is why god gave Amestris curly straws, Brad decides desperately, and resigns himself to buffoonery. “What, uh. What should we be toasting?”

“A toast to,” General Mustang pauses and makes aggressively meaningful eye contact, “hm, let’s see. How is your mother doing? We can toast to her good health.”

“My?” Brad’s fully fear-sweating now. The pits of his shirt are probably drenched. General Mustang is threatening his _mom_.

“Yes, Lorraine, wasn’t it? I hear she’s a lovely woman.” Did he send someone to _spy_ on her? Is there a sniper stationed outside her window right now? Does Colonel Hawkeye have orders to pull the trigger the moment they finish toasting his mom’s good health? Brad really, really wishes Elric had decided to shack up with some boring, harmless accountant before _seducing the second most powerful man in Amestris._ One additional degree of separation would’ve been really fucking helpful for ensuring he didn’t get his nuts flash-seared off.

Brad has no idea how to say, I love my mommy, please don’t hurt her, Mr. General Sir, without sounding truly pathetic, but he’s honestly not sure he has a choice.

“Does she call you often?” General Mustang says idly, before Brad can figure out how to beg. “More so lately, I hope. It’s always such a shame when mother and son stay at arms’ length with each other.”

Brad freezes.

He stares at General Mustang with horrified comprehension as his world shrinks in, and his gonads shrivel up and crawl back into his body where it’s marginally safer. General Mustang’s voice reverberates through his skull like a gong.

 _Elric couldn’t have known this._ They didn’t talk about their families. Ever. Because if Brad ever talked about his mom, that meant that Elric had to talk about _his_ mom, and Brad only had to ask about her once to learn his lesson. Brad’s pretty sure that whatever Elric’s mom’s deal is, it’s a matter of national security and he’d probably be killed in his sleep for knowing too much. And whatever spies General Mustang has on Brad and his mom and his neighbor’s pomeranian’s dog groomer, they couldn’t have known this either, because it’s not like Mom doesn’t treat Brad totally fine and normal and exactly like a loving mother should. 

Edelweiss, on the other hand, once sucked Brad’s dick so well, he straight up had a breakdown and confessed his deepest, darkest, most Freudian secret about how his mom being kind of distant with him is why he thinks he likes being spanked. And he used that exact phrase, ‘arms’ length’, in his rambling, incoherent post-coital confessional, and it is now _coming back out of General Mustang’s mouth._

And General Mustang’s smile says he knows it. 

Brad can only stare mutely as General Mustang’s smile widens. There’s something almost indulgent in it, like he’s not just enjoying the sadism but like he thinks there’s something genuinely cute about Brad fear-sweating his bodyweight out while clutching onto a tropical alcoholic car crash meant for four people. Brad doesn’t know how to feel about that, or whether he’ll experience normal human emotion ever again. 

His dick is bigger than General Mustang’s. Knowing this does not help anything. In fact, it actively makes things worse. _My dick is smaller than yours,_ General Mustang’s smile screams, _and it doesn’t even matter._

He’s waiting for Brad to say something. “Sir,” Brad croaks, the only combination of consonants and vowels available to him at this time. 

“To our health in general, then,” General Mustang says easily, eyes gleaming in carnivore’s satisfaction, and takes a sip of his drink. 

Brad bends his head to his curly straw and sucks. It’s the only thing he can do. 

* * *

Brad wakes up the next morning, hanging halfway outside the dumpster behind the Coco Loco Cabana, wildly hungover — but miraculously, inexplicably alive. He has no idea how that happened. He’s pretty sure if General Mustang really wanted to, he could’ve charbroiled him right in that bar and nobody would even have noticed. He’s not even sure the rest of his office team would’ve noticed when they arrived at the afterparty and stepped over the sooty black stain just next to the bar, because the bartender probably would have already swept up Brad’s ashes and blown General Mustang a kiss to boot.

He drags his sorry ass home to take a shower and marinate in his hangover and leftover terror adrenaline from last night. Then he picks up the phone and dials the Palace of Pleasures.

General Mustang must have done something horrible to Edelweiss, Brad thinks as he listens to the dial tone. He can’t even imagine what it would’ve taken to make a woman like that crack under pressure, but somehow General Mustang must’ve figured it out. The man is ruthless. Brad mourns the loss of her innocence. 

But he will have to carry on without her. He has a fresh bout of emotional trauma to manage, and Madame Christmas’s catalogue of hookers is as vast as it is varied.

Anyway, spending 75% of his monthly paycheck on Edelweiss hasn’t exactly helped him much in getting over Elric. Maybe a change of pace will be good for him.

He tries for the opposite this time and picks a taller woman with dark hair. Inky black, if he were to be poetic. She has a sort of Imperial vibe to her? At least, that’s what Brad thinks her main draw is supposed to be. Xingese features, smooth pale skin, and a leaner build. About as opposite from Edelweiss as he could get.

She’s also _much_ more attentive. Maybe a little too invested in the proceedings to be honest. She kind of scares Brad a lot, but in less of a could-break-every-bone-in-his-body way, and more of the will-spend-twenty-years-biding-her-time-before-striking sense. She would definitely step on Brad if he asked her to. It’s just the right amount of dick shrivelling terror to be perfect. 

“Hello, Brad,” she purrs when their appointment starts, pulling a white glove onto one dainty hand. “I hear you need someone to be _very_ mean to you.”

“Hi,” Brad says, nervous but, like, in the good way. “I’m supposed to call you Royal, right?”

**Author's Note:**

> This [art](https://silentwalrus1.tumblr.com/post/614854452197933056/a-roy-mustang-starring-a-wheeze-full-background) lived in the doc the entire time to worship as the guiding pilot light of this fic. Roy Mustang living his best life giving jock-himbos fear boners in a tiki bar. What more could we possibly need?


End file.
